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Addressing parasite burdens: enabling access to NexGard in community stores

09 Dec 2017 - News

By facilitating access to effective, appropriate and affordable treatments, AMRRIC is helping to make severe tick infestations like this one a thing of the past.

While the wet season often prevents AMRRIC veterinary and education teams getting out to communities, the respite in travel allows AMRRIC staff to really sink their teeth into project development back in the office. This year, spurred on by the extreme tick burden currently being experienced in many remote communities, a major focus for the AMRRIC team has been working on a project to enable community members to access affordable, effective and safe parasite treatment locally.

Many remote community stores do not stock animal health products; those that do often stock products that are either ineffective, unsafe or unaffordable. For remote community members, the community store is often the only store accessible to them within hundreds of kilometers, and online shopping – requiring reliable internet connections and credit cards – isn’t an option for most. For community members to truly take responsibility for their animals’ health, local access to effective, safe and affordable parasite treatments is essential. AMRRIC is committed to advocate for this need.

Having set out specific criteria for what was required (e.g. ease of administration, high safety margins, extremely effective against a broad range of parasites, within an affordable price range etc.) AMRRIC approached a number of veterinary pharmaceutical companies to see if they might assist to enable affordable access to effective parasite treatments. Fortunately, BoehringerIngelheimAnimal Health have agreed to provide AMRRIC a generous discount on the price of NexGard – an extremely effective palatable chew that treats ticks andfleas for one month duration. AMRRIC is now in the process of working with a number of community stores to ensure this efficacious and affordable product is available for purchase by community members at the discounted rate. AMRRIC thanks BoehringerIngelheimAnimal Health for their continued support of remote community veterinary programs. Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting project.